


Beyond the Impossible

by flipflop_diva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, During Canon, Missing Scene, Multi, Natasha Needs a Hug, Natasha-centric, POV Natasha Romanov, Pre-Relationship, Red Room, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6673834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha never knew the mark on her wrist, never knew there was a mark on her wrist. The Red Room burned it off her skin before she was old enough to even know it was there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Impossible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/gifts).



> Happy Final ShipSwap! I just adored your prompts, and I hope I did them justice!

Natasha never knew the mark on her wrist, never knew there was a mark on her wrist. The Red Room burned it off her skin before she was old enough to even know it was there. 

They taught her about people with marks, though, told her that the connection these people claimed to have to the one with a matching mark made them weak, vulnerable, an easy prey. 

Natasha wasn't weak or vulnerable or an easy prey. She grew up grateful she was one of the ones who didn't have a pity mark, as her instructors always called them. 

Until she was twenty-two and pulling a scientist out of a car that had just rolled off a cliff. The feeling in her chest - an almost burning sensation that compelled her to turn around - was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. 

She'd heard about it, though, from a politician she was once sent to kill. He'd told her the story over dinner while she smiled and flirted and let him take her upstairs. As he pulled her panties off her legs, she asked him how his soulmate died. 

She killed him with a dagger to the neck before he had a chance to answer. 

She remembered that story, every word, every expression on the man's face, as she raised her head to see the assassin with the metal arm raise his rifle. 

As the bullet ripped through her gut, her body screaming in agony as she fell to the ground, she thought to herself that of course if she had a soulmate, it would be a killer sent to kill her. 

She awoke two days later in a SHIELD medical facility, Clint and Coulson holding her hands and telling her it was a miracle she was able to let them know her whereabouts. A minute later before they found her and she would have died out there. 

She didn't tell them she hadn't called for help, hadn't done anything. She figured maybe it was the one gift her soulmate could give her - another day to live. 

She didn't see him again, her soulmate with the metal arm. She tried, now and then, to find him, digging into secure files on her time off and tracking down leads. But there was nothing but whispers and rumors. A ghost story. She almost began to believe she'd hallucinated the whole thing. 

Then she met Steve Rogers. She was halfway across the helicarrier to greet the captain and Coulson when, for the second time in her life, she felt it. That burning sensation that made her feel like she had to be close to someone. 

She gasped for air, almost stumbling, before she stopped, pulling herself together before anyone could notice. 

She had been trained her whole life to mask whatever she was feeling - pain, discomfort, fear, doubt - and this was no different. She took a breath and continued forward, smiling at Captain America like he was just any other man. 

The feeling in her chest didn't subside, though, but she had no one she could ask about it. No one else knew she'd already found her soulmate. No one else knew she even _had_ a soulmate, and she knew it wasn't possible to have two. 

The captain obviously thought the same thing. She caught him a couple of times over the next couple days trying to glance at her wrist, but she always pretended she didn't notice, and he never directly asked her. In fact, he barely spoke to her at all. 

The night they defeated the Chitauri, Tony invited them all in to the remnants of Stark Tower, to drink and relax. She didn't remember falling asleep on one of Tony's entirely too comfortable leather couches, but when she awoke, she could hear soft voices coming from the other side of the room. 

Steve and Tony. 

"But I _have_ ... had ... a soulmate," Steve was saying. 

"Maybe you have two?" Tony replied. He sounded uncertain. 

"That's not possible," Steve answered. 

"It could be. One before the ice, one after."

"She doesn't have any marks on her wrist."

"You could ask her," Tony suggested. 

Natasha heard Steve scoff. "No," he said. "I already have a soulmate."

She closed her eyes tightly, even though the men couldn't see her from where they were sitting. Her chest ached, as if it were literally on fire. She didn't know why she even cared. She'd spent her whole life thinking she didn't have a soulmate and it wasn't something she wanted. So why did she feel like destiny was playing some cruel trick on her, not once but twice?

***

Despite the awkwardness and the fact that she was literally in pain every time she was near him, Natasha grew to like Steve Rogers. First as a colleague, then as a partner and then, when they were sitting on the bed in Sam's guest room, their hands just inches apart, as a friend. 

She didn't trust many people in her life but she realized with something akin to an epiphany that she trusted him. 

She ached for more than that, though. She just wanted to touch him, to hold his hand, to wrap her arms around his waist, to curl up next to him. Instead she jumped to her feet when Sam offered them breakfast and pretended, as she always did, that she didn't need anyone. 

Eight hours later, a gunshot wound in her shoulder - the second time her metal armed maybe soulmate had shot her - she was glad she hadn't acted on any instinct she'd had back at Sam's. The look on Steve's face told her everything she ever needed to know - he was still desperately in love with Bucky, and whatever it was that was happening to her whenever she was with either one of them - maybe the Red Room had done something to her? - she wasn't their soulmate. They were each other's. 

"Can someone have two soulmates?" she asked Sam two days later when they were sitting on opposite sides of Steve's hospital bed. He was in pretty bad shape, even with the serum, but the only thing Natasha could think about was the symbol on his wrist - three interlocking circles that perfectly matched the mark she had seen on Bucky's wrist right before he'd almost killed her. "Like if their first one dies," she clarified, trying to sound like she was just making conversation. 

"I've never heard of that," he said, then he frowned. "Why? Do you think Steve might have a second one?"

"No," she said, much too quickly. She saw Sam arch an eyebrow. "I don't have one," she told him, trying to keep her voice neutral. "I'm just curious."

"Okay," Sam said, but she knew he didn't believe her. 

To prove her point, she let go of Steve's hand and made a show of getting comfortable in her chair. It helped the constant ache in her chest - the same one that seemed to have doubled in intensity since their encounter with Bucky - to actually touch him, but she couldn't let anyone know, not even Sam. She still didn't understand what was wrong with her, but she knew it wasn't good and it needed to stay a secret. 

***   
Natasha should have known she couldn't keep it a secret forever, especially not when Steve started looking for Bucky. But she hadn't expected it to hurt so much when Steve brought his lover back to their new Avengers base so they could be together again. 

Literally hurt so much. 

She had walked into the gym without stopping to check who was in there, too distracted by the constant pain that now seemed to have taken over her entire body ever since Bucky had moved in, and was halfway across the room before she became aware of another presence. She turned her head to the right and actually let out a moan before she could help it. 

Bucky and Steve were pressed together, lips moving against each other, hands in each other's hair. 

Natasha felt like she was going to die. She had felt pain before, but nothing like this. She couldn't breathe. Her chest felt like it was on fire. She could feel her blood pumping in the throbbing at her temple. Her muscles clenched up. The room spun. She thought she was going to throw up. 

Instead she made a choking sound as her whole body seized up in pain. And then she was falling, face first on to the ground, unable to do anything to stop it, the blackness at the edges of her vision almost comforting. 

***

She awoke to the feeling of something cool on her head and something warm and heavy on her hands, but more than that, she awoke to a feeling she'd never experienced before. Like a weight she hadn't known she was carrying had been lifted and now she could finally catch her breath. 

She knew exactly who she would see when she opened her eyes, even if part of her brain was yelling at her not to accept it. 

Steve was holding one hand and pressing the cool cloth to her forehead with the other. Bucky had her left wrist - the one people with soulmates had their mark on - in his own flesh hand, his metal hand tracing over her flesh. 

"You have a scar here," he told her. "Do you remember how you got it?"

Natasha wasn't sure if she trusted herself to speak, the way the two men were looking at her. She just shook her head. 

"Have you always had it?" Bucky continued. "Since you can remember?"

She nodded. _Yes._

She saw Bucky and Steve's eyes meet. 

"The Red Room removed girls' soulmarks," Steve said softly. "Peggy confirmed it for us."

Natasha blinked at him. She thought she knew what he was saying, but that wasn't possible ...

"That's what this scar is," Bucky said. "It was your mark."

Natasha found her voice. "That's not possible. People can't have two soulmates."

"People can't live frozen in ice either, but it happened," Steve said. His lips curved up into a smile. "And I know how I feel when I'm with you."

"Me too," Bucky said. "And don't try to pretend you don't," he added. 

Natasha shook her head. Yes, of course she had felt it, but it wasn't possible, it had never been possible ...

"I'm not supposed to have a soulmate," she finally managed. 

"You don't," Bucky said simply. "You have two."

Natasha almost laughed at the way he said that, like it really was that easy. 

"I don't know what that means," she finally said. 

"Neither do we," Steve said, "but we're willing to figure it out. If you want."

If she wanted. Of course she wanted. But it wasn't that easy. It couldn't be that easy ...

"I don't know how," she said quietly. She almost felt like she was confessing her deepest secret to them. 

"Neither do we," Bucky said. He squeezed the hand he was still holding. "But we'll figure it out together."

Together. The word rolled around in her head. It sounded strange, considering the life she had led. 

Together. 

She thought she should make a sarcastic reply or tell them she'd think about it. Something. Anything. 

"Okay," she found herself saying instead as the two men smiled and her body warned from the inside at the sight. "Together."


End file.
